Budget Gaming: Civ 5

If you're one of the 7 people who have never heard of civilization it's a turn based strategy franchise in which you build an empire from scratch and try to make that nation the most powerful in the world.

Civ 5 is the weekend deal on Steam this weekend, on sale for $12.50:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/8930/

Civilization 5 is the latest in the series that started way back in the 90s. On it's own it is certainly an amazing game but when you compare it to other games in the series it turns into just a good game.

Deciding what to produce

Civ5 tries out so many new features to Civilization and a lot of them are great. It has hex tiles instead of the normal square tiles; you can no longer stack multiple units on top of each other; they made ranged units actually be ranged (i.e. they actually do damage from one or 2 tiles away); they added an in-game mod browser for people to find and release mods; and a sort of skill tree for your civilization that they call Social Policies. However some of the choices they made for Civ5 disappoint me. These choices being mainly the decision to charge for dlc that people could make and release on their own for free and getting rid of the corporations/religions from Civ4.

Civ5 is certainly a good Civ game, but then again I can't think of a bad one (I haven't played Civ3 so I could be wrong). I would place Civ5 near the bottom ranks of Civ games though. Again, don't get me wrong, it's an amazing game in it's own right. However, Compared to Civ4 (certainly the best in my opinion) it doesn't quite make the cut. I can still get lost in playing the game and accidentally stay up until 5am trying to conquer the world but it just isn't the same.

Social Policies

There are quite a few good changes to the series that (if they make more games) I hope go into the next game. The Social Policies system is one of these changes. It's a sort of skill tree for your civilization. There are 8 different policy trees to adopt and adopting some will lock others. These policies range from economic to social and provide benefits to your civilization. The benefits all fit into a certain playstyle. For example, there are a lot of policies that would augment a militaristic empire by giving extra production towards military units and giving units more experience from combat. In my opinion these policies add a lot to the depth of the game and can make every time you play a game a little bit different.

Now onto the things I don't like...

For one it's missing religions. The religions in Civ4 were amazing and added real depth to the game. They were an important tool in diplomacy and could often help you win an early victory. I remember I once won a game of Civ4 before even getting out of the Classical Age because all I did was convert everyone to my religion and made them my friend and I won a diplomatic victory. While you may say "That sounds way too easy! I want a challenge." it was a challenge! Converting everyone to my religion took a lot of my resources and instead of creating useful buildings in my cities I was stuck making missionaries. Of course I made it easy on myself by making the world a Pangea world (a world with only one continent). These kind of memorable moments are gone from Civ5.

Something else that peeves me about this installment is the fact that they charge for Civilizations and maps. They don't even find community members to make new and interesting mods to sell them and give them a part of the profits. To me it seems like a bit of money grubbing on their part to sell content that users could make themselves with the extensive modding tools that Civilization is famous for. Civilization has always been a great place for modders to make a name for themselves because it's relatively easy to create a mod and get it out there. With the Mod browser it makes it easier to find great mods.

Belgrade, a city-state surrounded by my empire.

Something I am indifferent about are City-states. These are independent Civilizations that can give you bonuses if you befriend them. The reason I'm indifferent about them is because they really don't add enough to the game to be fun or interesting. There are different types that give you either a military unit every so often, food, or culture. You have to spend gold to befriend them and your reputation with them slowly deteriorates so you have to constantly do it. I would be fine without them but I also don't mind them being in my worlds (you can turn them off if you so desire).

TL;DR

Civ5 is certainly a good game. It's got a few new things to Civilization including hex tiles instead of square, social policies (a sort of talent tree for your civ, which I really like), no more unit stacking, mod browser, etc. However, it changed a few things about the series that I feel are for the worse including charging for DLC that could be made by users, and getting rid of the religions and corporations from Civ4. The city-states that were added into the game really don't add enough to the game to be fun or interesting. It's a great game and I would recommend it but for the hardcore Civilization fan I might recommend staying with Civ4. But then again this is 75% off for the weekend so at $12.50 why not pick it up?